


Off The Ice

by NovelistAngel23



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Skating, Awkward Flirting, M/M, Nerd Marco Bott, implied alcohol use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-19
Updated: 2016-04-19
Packaged: 2018-06-03 07:15:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6601759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NovelistAngel23/pseuds/NovelistAngel23
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something about Jean was much easier. Easier to talk to, easier to stand next to, easier to listen to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Off The Ice

The moment Hitch pulled up to the building, Marco was sure there had to have been a mistake. Music, the loud, pulsing kind that his mother would have been horrified to listen to, poured out of every glowing window. People milled about the lawn, trampling the grass and downing what looked suspiciously like beer.

Marco shivered in his seat, opening his mouth to say, “I thought we were seeing a movie,” when Hitch leapt out of the car.

“Let’s _go_ , Lil Marco!” she cackled, leaning over to pop his seatbelt.

He clung to it even as it zipped up to smack his hands. “Hitch, this isn’t a movie!” he squeaked.

She rolled her eyes. “Do _not_ tell me you’ve never been to a party,” she scolded, and although her tone was playful, Marco wasn’t sure if he should leave the relative safety of her car.

“I-I’m not dressed,” he stuttered, grasping for excuses.

She rolled her eyes again. “Come on, you big baby, get out of the car.”

Marco knew better than to not do what she asked—she had that look on her face she got when she was skating, the determined, no-nonsense one. So he scurried out of the car and stood before her, still fidgeting. “I’m not dressed for a party…” he repeated, less confident now.

She studied him for a moment, hands on her hips. Finally, she said, “Untuck your shirt and ruffle your hair.”

Marco was hesitant, but she impatiently clapped her hands. “Chop, chop, Marco!”

Marco hurriedly did as she said, letting his shirt hang loose and making his hair stand on end. Hitch grinned when he was done. “Hah! I knew you were hot under all that nerd. Now.” She took his shoulder in one hand and led him towards the house. “When you walk, sway your hips. Remember, no man can resist a good hip sway.”

Marco wasn’t quite sure how the hip sway could possibly help but followed her advice nonetheless. He took the fact that Hitch didn’t burst into laughter as a sign that he was doing well.

Inside, the music was so loud that Marco couldn’t hear his own thoughts. He resisted the urge to cover his ears as Hitch scanned the crowd. “Ah! There he is, Reiner!” she called out.

A tall, tall man whose bulk overwhelmed Marco came at Hitch’s call. “Reiner, this is Marco. Reiner plays hockey. Marco ice skates.” She looked meaningfully between them. “You two have a lot to talk about.”

Before Marco could protest, Hitch’s boyfriend appeared from the crowd and called out for her. She squealed with delight and ditched Marco without another glance.

Reiner was an intimidating force beside Marco. He wondered to himself if Reiner was twice his weight. He studied his body, trying to find some accurate way to measure it without having to ask—but Reiner smiled at him and waved.

“Hey,” he said, good-natured enough. Although Marco still felt nervous (and still wanted to calculate this guy’s overall body mass out of pure curiosity), he could also feel himself starting to relax the slightest bit. “So you’re a figure skater?”

Marco blushed at the description. He wanted to say no—that he was just a Physics nerd, that figure skating was just a detour on his beeline track to Harvard. But something fluttery in his stomach prevented him from confessing that, and instead he smiled and said, “Y-yeah, I am. And you’re a hockey player?”

Reiner grinned and nodded. “Yep. Hey, don’t tell this to the guys, but I honestly think you and your friends could skate circles around us.”

Marco was flattered but also flustered by the compliment, and he searched desperately for the right thing to say—

But at that moment, someone in the crowd shouted from the railing of the staircase. Reiner and Marco, as well as the rest of the crowd, looked up to see someone standing on the railing with a makeshift hang glider around him. Marco winced, squinting as he calculated the trajectory. “Oh no,” he muttered, mostly to himself, but Reiner heard him.

“What’s wrong?”

Marco glanced at him and then back up at the man about to throw himself from the railing. As he leapt, Marco started to explain. “Assuming his weight to be about 150 pounds, at that rate of descent, his estimated trajectory would take him--“

As he spoke the man flew down from the railing and forward and forward until he crashed directly into the window on the other side of the room. Marco finished a little more quietly, “Directly through the window.”

He turned towards Reiner again and found that he was getting a strange look. Suddenly all of the confidence Hitch had painstakingly instilled in him melted away. “I-it’s a simple V times M equals A miscalculation,” he murmured. When Reiner showed no sign of understanding, he clumsily began to explain more. He could feel himself starting to ramble but couldn’t help it. “Y-you know, v-velocity times momentum equals a-acceleration?” He shrank even further. “Physics…”

Reiner looked him up and down once, nodded slowly, and said, “Yeah, um… I’ve gotta…. Go.”

And with that and one last weird look, he walked away, leaving Marco fidgeting alone in the middle of the crowd. He thought that at least would be the end of his embarrassment until a girl in the crowd caught his gaze and had to hold back a laugh. “Do you know who that was?” she asked.

Marco tried to answer, but another girl beside the first piped up and said, “Reiner Braun. Like, the hottest guy on the hockey team?”

The first girl looked Marco up and down in much the same way Reiner had before. “Yeah, word of advice, you should probably never speak again.”

Marco didn’t know what to say, so he started to ramble again. “I-I’m sorry, I just—w-when I’m nervous I start to talk, and talk, it’s like a gear gets all loose in my head and then—“

The girl snickered. “Kind of like you’re doing now?”

“Hey, I think babbling is cool,” a voice came from behind Marco.

It was familiar, but Marco couldn’t place it until he turned around and found Jean standing behind him. His eyes widened at the sight of his savior—Jean wasn’t the type he’d expect to find a party like this. When Marco turned back to look at the two girls, he found that they’d taken one look at Jean and walked away.

Before Marco could thank him, Jean gently touched Marco’s shoulder. “Come on, Marco,” he said soothingly, leading Marco towards the snack table. Marco gladly went along with him.

“Th-thank you for back there,” he murmured, smiling gratefully, and Jean leaned back against the snack table and shrugged.

“It’s no problem.” He squinted at Marco, making Marco just the slightest bit nervous, before finally saying, “So I guess you’re Hitch’s cover tonight?” he asked. He laughed at Marco’s shocked expression. “Usually it’s my job.”

Marco blushed and shrugged, leaning against the inside of a doorway as they spoke. “W-well, she could have told me we were going to a party…”

Jean shrugged. “Eh, my sister has issues—“

Marco gasped involuntary. Jean stopped and looked at him questioningly. “Your sister?” Marco asked. “You’re? Tina’s son? I just thought you were…”

Marco felt too embarrassed to say it—now that it came to mind, it was probably rude to say. But Jean didn’t seem embarrassed at all. “The help?” he asked.

Marco thought back to all the times he’d seen him driving the Zamboni to clean up the ice, and all the times he’d seen him around, engineering a quick fix for broken parts of the rink. Marco looked away.

To his surprise, he heard Jean laugh. When he looked up, Jean was grabbing a soda from the cooler full of ice and drinks beside Marco’s foot. “Well, I kind of am. Hitch skates, I fix stuff—ah!” He frowned as he pulled the tab the wrong way and accidentally left his soda unopened. “Well, most stuff.”

Marco smiled a bit and reached out for one of straws laid out on the table Jean leaned against. Without a word, he held his hand out for the soda can and expertly pressed on the indent for the opening. It popped open easily, which Marco grinned at. He left the straw in the can and handed it back to Jean, leaning against the doorway again. “An object is only as strong as its weakest point,” he explained.

Jean smiled and took a quick sip. “Physics?” he asked.

Marco blushed and nodded, and yet he was still smiling. Somehow, he didn’t feel as nervous anymore. In fact, he was starting to feel confident again. Something about Jean was much easier. Easier to talk to, easier to stand next to, easier to listen to. “So… Tell me about fixing stuff?” he asked, his voice warmer than before.

Jean sipped his soda again and smiled around his straw before he continued. “See, when Mom bought the rink, it was a mess. I’m the one who did most of the fixing up. I did most of the repairs, painting, the Zamboni.” He grinned wider at that, leaning back. “Man, that was my favorite part.”

He looked at Marco again, but his grin didn’t waver. “So you’re into the science thing huh?”

Marco felt himself grin back. “You could say that—“

But before he could finish what he was saying, a boy walked clumsily through the doorway. “'Scuse me,” he said, but Marco didn’t dodge quickly enough before he was knocked backwards.

He caught onto the doorway so he didn’t fall completely over, but one of his feet fell into the cooler, sending a chill all the way through his leg. He yelped in surprise and quickly pulled his foot from the ice. However, the sound he’d made caused a few people to look over at him.

There were more than a few snickers that made Marco blush and want to hide his face, as well as a few people sparing choice words like, “What a dork.”

But then he felt Jean’s presence a little closer than it was before. He looked up to see a concerned expression on Jean’s face. When he realized Marco was fine, he leaned one arm on the doorway above Marco’s head and said, “Wow, guess you just can’t stay off the ice.”

The snickers and mean people didn’t matter at all after that. Marco snorted a bit, attempting to hold back a giggle, and finally said with utmost confidence, “Guess not.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by the movie Ice Princess!! It's one of my fave movies, and I wanted to make an au of it. This is one of my fave scenes of the movie haha. You can thank @irisfireball (forgive me I've forgotten your tumblr orz) for actually convincing me to write this lol.
> 
> If you like this, please kudos and leave a comment! If you want to see more of my writing, check out my writing sideblog novelistangel =DD


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